A trial with Minds begins with free workspace registration, though it does not include preloaded free responses. Platform usage is structured flexibly through a pay-as-you-go model starting at 0.12 euros per response or via fixed subscription plans. The resulting simulation data delivers directional, context-dependent insights for marketing and product teams without expensive recruitment fees.
Below, you will learn in detail how to structure a pilot with Minds, what costs to expect, and which use cases benefit most from synthetic audience research.
This guide is designed for marketing leads, insights specialists, UX researchers, and innovation managers evaluating synthetic audience research for their teams. If you are looking to accelerate existing market research workflows or establish feedback loops before expensive campaign rollouts, here are the commercial and operational parameters for getting started with Minds.
Getting started with Minds requires no lengthy sales calls or complex technical implementation projects. A pilot project can be set up in a few simple steps:
First, create a free workspace. Inside this workspace, you can invite unlimited team members with editor or viewer-only permissions without incurring additional seat license fees.
Second, build your audiences. In Minds, an individual simulated persona is called a Mind, while a structured group of profiles forms an Audience. Audiences can be generated from existing persona descriptions, market research notes, CRM segments, or target audience briefs. In a standard workspace, you can save up to 10 audiences with up to 200 Minds each.
Third, set up your first study. A study represents a specific research run. Here, you choose between qualitative interactions, structured quantitative surveys, scale questions, or advanced methods like MaxDiff. You can also incorporate stimuli such as copy, visual layouts, video, or shared Figma prototypes.
Fourth, launch the simulation by purchasing response credits. Because a new account does not include free responses, you top up the response credits needed for the test run directly in the platform. The Minds PRISM Engine computes the synthetic target audience responses based on the provided sources and context. Once the simulation completes, results are available for in-depth analysis, segment comparisons, and exports.
Minds relies on a transparent billing model tailored to actual research volume:
Pay-as-you-go
This flexible model is ideal for pilots and ad-hoc research runs:
- 0.12 euros or 0.12 dollars per generated response
- For German accounts, prices include statutory VAT; for US accounts, prices exclude US sales tax
- Unlimited workspace seats and free viewers
- Purchased response credits do not expire at the end of the month; they roll over continuously
- Up to 10 saved audiences per workspace with up to 200 Minds per audience
- Full access to all supported question types, methodologies, exports, standard integrations, plus API and MCP interfaces
Pro Subscription
For teams with ongoing research needs:
- 199 euros per named user per month or 1,990 euros per year including VAT
- 5,000 shared responses per user per month
- Up to 25 saved audiences per user
Enterprise Agreements
For company-wide rollouts with custom requirements:
- Starting at 15,000 euros per year excluding VAT
- Contractually defined usage quotas, custom deployment terms, and dedicated support
Important for budget planning: Responses are consumed every time a simulation runs. Unlimited user seats or unlimited draft studies do not mean unlimited responses can be generated.
When evaluating the commercial viability of a software pilot, a direct comparison with established research methods is helpful:
| Criterion | Traditional Online Panels | Generic Chatbot Prompts | Minds Platform |
|---|
| Billing metric | Cost per respondent plus recruitment markup | Fixed monthly chatbot seat fee | Pure response volume (pay-as-you-go or quota) |
| Recruitment costs | High, varies by audience specificity | None | No participant or incentive fees |
| Methodology support | Qualitative or quantitative handled separately | Free-text chat only | End-to-end: open text, scales, MaxDiff, prototypes |
| Data consistency | Dependent on panel quality | Low consistency, drifting personas | Minds PRISM Engine for consistent modeling |
| Iteration speed | Days to weeks per wave | Instant, but unstructured | Fast, repeatable study cycles |
Generic AI chatbots may seem inexpensive on the surface, but they lack a structured infrastructure for relational audience segments, multivariate methodologies, or reproducible research workflows. Traditional panels, on the other hand, incur recurring recruitment fees for every single iteration. Minds bridges this gap by enabling fast pre-testing and concept comparisons at pure usage-based response costs.
Minds is designed as an end-to-end platform for commercial synthetic market research. It replaces fragmented point solutions, allowing teams to combine qualitative exploration and quantitative methodology within a single unified workflow.
Ideal use cases for Minds
- Early concept and positioning tests for B2C and B2B2C brands
- Iterative feedback on ad creatives, campaign messaging, and packaging designs
- UX and prototype evaluations using Figma files or website flows
- Feature list prioritization via MaxDiff before development begins
- Hypothesis generation prior to launching costly physical field studies
Limitations of synthetic simulation
Minds results should be interpreted as directional and context-dependent. Minds is explicitly not intended for:
- Clinical trials or regulatory approval processes
- Representative price elasticity measurements claiming statistical population-level accuracy
- Political polling and election forecasting
- Sensory testing of physical goods
For final, high-stakes business decisions, physical panel surveys or live experiments can serve as complementary validation once options have been pre-screened and optimized in Minds.
To start a pilot, you can directly create an account and get started. After setting up your workspace, you can define your first target audiences, add response credits, and run an initial study to validate messaging, designs, or product ideas before taking them to market.
